New (and old) Project Ideas

Thanks to Sharon for the hat suggestion. The Hermione's Cable-and-Bobble Hat is great looking -- and very unique, I think. I'm not sure that it's quite the look I'm going for, but I'm always glad to see other ideas. I still haven't settled on something definitively at this point, but I'm seriously considering the Glaistig. Sharon pointed out that the Wavy Cable Lace Cap doesn't actually have cables in it. (Very tricky of them, I must say.)

Since Sunday night I have been kind of excited about this top I found online. Coincidentally, my finding it was ALSO a result of talking with Sharon. Our planets must be doing something similar or something (change that sentence to sound like I know something astute about astrology). She pointed me in the direction of a designer who knows something about hemp.

As a belated birthday present, my brother told me that he wants to get me 5 skeins of Mother Nature's Forest Collection. I can choose what colors or color I want. I still haven't decided on a pattern, thus I haven't decided what color(s) I want. This yarn is a hemp/wool blend, so I've been considering what patterns work well with it. Well, I've been looking through the website of this designer who does hemp patterns. I'm quite adoring of this Lacy Little Top.

I know what you're thinking:

• How did you go from winter to summer so quickly? Um, I dunno.

• Doesn't that look an awful lot like the Simple Knitted Bodice? Well, yes, I think it does. Either that sort of pattern looks really good on me, or I need to adjust my ideas of what does look good on me. I think my first plan of action is that I need to finish the SKB. As summer approaches, I find my interest in it is coming back.

In other news, David and I will be flying to Connecticut on Friday after David's class. He has a midterm until 4, and our flight leaves from Gainesville at 5pm. Wish us luck! My mom is turning 60 on Sunday and she's having a big birthday bash. Sounds like fun. We'll get back late Monday night and easily get right back into the swing of things Tuesday (my optimistic self says). I'm looking forward to time with family though. I think it'll be nice.

Shawl progress and completed socks

Somehow I managed to finish Amy's socks and complete the center part of the shawl within the same 24 hour period. In a way, I feel very productive having done this, although I don't think I would haven't chosen it to be this way. I like starting something new when I still have an old friend to come back to at the same time. But, the result? Pictures!


So do you guys like seeing pictures? Cause I often find that I can't decide on what angle to show. I just want to show them all. I like to see pics on people's blogs, so I hope you do too. Is there a reason to limit pictures?


Anyway... So, I completed chart 3 on the Flowing River Shawl. I had taken about a week off from the shawl at one point since I got discouraged after a mishap. Happily though, I fixed it and progress continued.

(Yes, that's a Holiday Inn pen on top of the shawl- to give some scale to the pic. No endorsement of Holiday Inn is intended...although I did choose IT over a Travelodge pen...hmmmm.)

At the end of chart 3 you bind off and then pick up stitches along the bottom two edges of the triangle to make the border. I am now stuck at this point since I don't seem to quite understand the directions. I'm fairly new to this, so I probably have it confused. But, when I do the math for the directions, I come up with 1 fewer stitches than I'm supposed to get. I have emailed the designer and am hoping for some pointers to get me back on my feet.



Unfortunately, I committed a grave error at one point and glided over a crucial direction. I'm meant to bind off WITHOUT BREAKING YARN!!! Well, I read that, but then decided that Elizabeth Zimmerman's sewn bind-off would be perfect for the lace. Somehow I conveniently forgot (until I completed the bind-off) that the breaking-of-yarn required in that bind-off contradicts the no-breaking-of-yarn required. So, I'm not sure what I'll do now. Silk doesn't weave in easily. I don't want a knot in it either though. IDEAS ANYONE? Can I weave it in somehow after all?


For a short time however, I'm content to just enjoy the stage I'm at. It's fun to have it off the needles for a bit.

and...SOCKS! Prior to Christmas, my best friend Amy and I had a good conversation that helped us both relax. We agreed that we wouldn't stress to get each other Christmas presents by Christmas Day itself. This has felt very good, since I wanted to do something special for Amy, but knew I wouldn't have time before Christmas. Knitting these socks has been a joy; they helped me contemplate on her, our relationship, and aspects of the ways we relate. This colorway jumped out at me as THE socks for her, even though I didn't necessarily think of them as her colors. For reasons that are too complex to discuss on a blog, I have come to feel that this skein was, and is, the perfect yarn for her socks.

Happily, I present...Amy's socks.

Yarn: Cherry Tree Hill "Supersock", colorway "Northern Lights".

I used size 1 DPNS (except size 0 for the cuff, as I usually do nowadays).

I really like this yarn. As everyone says, it's very squishy and has strong stitch definition. These are solid socks, but still very soft. CTH impressed me and I will definitely be using them again. Since I've been knitting socks, I think I've had happy things to say about every brand I've tried. However, as I try more and more, I realize that some I had tried at the beginning aren't necessarily my favorite anymore. CTH showed me a quality in sock yarn that I like- the stitch definition and the solid, squishy feel. I didn't think I liked stitch definition, but I do. The sock itself feels like it holds up better somehow.

I balled up some Autumn House Farm yarn today. These will be for ME! I actually have no socks for myself at this point. I'm very excited. This yarn looks happy.

A knitter in Florida

Since moving to Florida 1 1/2 years ago, I have had to come to terms with the season of summer. Not that I don't like summer- I do. I just also enjoy the other seasons as well. The other seasons, to me, help to define summer somehow.

This summer thing has really changed the way I see knitting too. Worsted weight was my good friend when I lived in the northeast. I now play with lace weight and fingering weight almost exclusively. Socks are my main project of choice because even in FL, you need socks.

But, the last couple months have actually been cool (as in "low in temperature"). I keep wanting to knit gloves, hats, sweaters, etc., and then stopping myself because I know this cool weather will end any day. I SHOULD be knitting on my Simple Knitted Bodice, which has long been sitting dormant- so that I'll have a nice top when the warm weather comes. But, I admit that there is something about the warm, cozy items that I crave. I find myself thinking that I probably will never end up knitting hats, sweaters, etc., since by the time I start wanting to knit them, it's summer again already.

HOWEVER... I just realized something!

I'm going to be going to Philadelphia! For 2 weeks in the fall and 2 weeks in the winter, over the course of 2 years, I will be in a cooler climate- even when it's summer in FL. That's 8 weeks of warm cozy knitted item wearing! How exciting.

So, now I'm inspired. I really could knit those things!

I'm craving a beautiful hat for the cool weather. Also, I've been interested in trying my hand at cables. What better way to try cables than on a smaller item, like a hat. I've been looking around but haven't found the right pattern yet. Any ideas? I'd like something pretty, but not too busy. The hats here , and here are on the right track, but I'm not sure yet. Other options?

Good news!

This week, I can officially report that I have been accepted to Temple University for the Masters program! Hooray! I had some rather unofficial hints earlier (for which I was very grateful- I had been alittle obsessed over whether I got in or not), but this week I got the letter. I will say that the letter from the admissions department there was worded strangely; but the outcome was the same. I'm getting my Masters at Temple, starting in the fall.

This feels tremendous for me. First of all, I didn't decide I wanted to go for my Masters until the end of November (at Thanksgiving time). I pulled all this off in a month and a half. I'm very proud of myself. The essay, the transcripts, the letters of reference, the AUDITION, the trip to Philly, etc. It feels very good.

Secondly, my acceptance into this program means more to me than my acceptance into some other programs I've been involved in. I really wanted to get in of course, so that is a good part of the reason. But also, during my interview I really showed them a large part of who I am in a real way. Of course I did the "talk the talk" thing some, but then I opened myself. I essentially said, "this is who I am on a deeper level- I hurt, I cry, I want these things in my life, I have these passions, I am all these things... And, for the first time in quite a while I found these to be people who really saw who I was. They heard me and they listened. Sometimes you open yourself to someone on a deeper level, and they may not even notice or see that deeper place you were trying to share.

They saw me.

So, my worries were that maybe having seen me, they wouldn't want me in the program. However, I now find that they saw who I am on a deep level, and they really want me in the program, That means A LOT to me.

In other news, my cyst is better. Thanks for your well wishes. I'm still in pain during the day, but not the burning kind of pain, and not pain all the time. My acupuncturist gave me some trauma pills on Monday, and they really helped. I was able to work and do alright with it. I did have a moment when one of my clients was tantruming and banging his head against my chest when I thought I might pass out from the burn...but you know, on the whole, things are on the up and up ;)

And, the cyst is actually getting a bit smaller! It was softer before, but now I can tell that it feels shallower too. I think it may be starting to go away. I have to be careful about using the right side of my body still. I think that the cyst, over time, has become a part of the musculature of my chest. So, now that the cyst is softening it's affecting that side. It makes sense to me. In the long run, I'm ok with it because it is a positive step for me. I just need to be careful.

I will say that the cyst's departing is kind of sending me on an emotional roller coaster. For those of you who don't know, I normally don't eat any sugars- corn syrup down through juice sweetener. Well, I've put a hold on that. I need some crutch for helping with this emotional process of the cyst's dispersing. I've decided I'm ok with sugar being that for a short period of time. Plus, it's kind of fun to eat chocolate again ;)

So, that's the good news with school, and the news that's hard in the short-term, but good overall, with my cyst.

Health connections

Around 7 years ago, I had a sebaceous cyst develop on my chest. For those of you who don't know, they basically resemble a lump under the skin. I'm pretty sure that its development had something to do with a difficult relationship I was having at the time with my first boyfriend. I have a sense that it developed as a way to protect my heart from pain. It's hard to separate physical from emotional expressions, and those two are very tied together with this cyst. When it first came I did the doctor thing and made sure it wasn't breast cancer or anything. They said it was just a cyst-- they could take it out for me, or leave it. I left it. Since then, it has gotten slowly larger.

As some of you know, I spend a lot of time focusing on improving my health. Eating the right foods, getting regular acupuncture treatments, fixing Chinese herbal things, etc. Well, as I've been doing those things over the last year, my energy has slowly but surely improved. It's really great- I can do things I always wanted to do before, but couldn't because I got too tired. However, as my energy has increased, it's also been getting a bit stuck. Since David's been in school for Oriental Medicine, I've become accustomed to speaking in that terminology. It's hard to translate it into western terms. But, the basic idea is that my body hasn't been used to this energy and now that it's here, it doesn't know what to do with it. So, the energy is getting plugged up in areas of my body.

This is a positive thing, but has been causing me some issues. The main area of late has been in this cyst. I have a sense that energy is now available to help me move this cyst- and, perhaps more importantly, help me handle the emotions that caused the cyst in the first place. Three weeks ago the cyst became very tender and easily injured- causing some pain. So, my treatment has shifted some away from developing energy exclusively to really focus on eliminating the cyst through herbs. I don't want to get it cut out with surgery, because I don't think that would effect the root issues around the cyst, and I don't want to take away my "shield" too quickly. Since the cyst has become tender I've been particularly aware of how emotional I feel around it.

So, every day I'm boiling up herbs to drink, and every night I'm putting a poultice on the cyst and covering it with gauze and tape. After less than a week of doing this the cyst softened (for the first time in 7 years). Incredible! So, I feel this is really doing something. The only problem is that as it's healing it's become even more tender.

Yesterday David and I went canoeing in Cedar Key, FL. We met my aunt and boated out into the Gulf to an island off the coast. She kayaked, we canoed. It was lovely, however on the way back the wind picked up. It was kind of dangerous- we were exhausted. At some points the canoe just went backwards, no matter how much we rowed. A third of the way back I could feel my chest burning. Not a good thing. There wasn't anything to do but keep working though, because we had to get back. We did make it back, although David and I were both the worse for wear.

Last night I couldn't sleep because I kept waking up with a searing pain in my chest and this morning I've found I really can't use my right arm or my cyst will burn again. I can't pick things up, can't pull things out...and I can't knit! *gasp!* I was going to go to the knitting group today but couldn't do it-- :(

So, although this kind of sucks at the moment, I'm hopeful about this. I know the herbs I'm taking are making a difference, I just have to stop injuring it. I've been very impressed by all that David is able to help me with as a result of what he learns at school. He's so good at what he does and I'm very lucky to have his skill available to me.

Hey...could I make a plug for those of you in Gainesville? If any one's interested, his school has a low-cost student clinic in Chinese Medicine. It's fully supervised, and the students (like David) are very good. He'll be starting in May in the clinic. Dragon Rises College of Oriental Medicine. If you're interested in treatments, let me know- I'll get you the info.

Money-saving sunshine

Well I'm pleased as punch with my clothes drying escapades today. For Christmas I had asked my dad for a clothesline (yes, a clothesline- whatever floats your boat, right?). I figured this was something dad could get that didn't require a yarn store or online purchase, and he really knew what he was doing. Apparently the guy at the hardware store couldn't get over the fact that his daughter had asked for a clothesline for Christmas. Well, Dad got exactly what we needed and last weekend I finally put it up. I was waiting for the right day to use it. Today was such a day.

I was surprised to find how much I enjoyed the process of hanging clothes. I expected it to be work. Well, it was work, but it felt somehow refreshing to be out in the sun, hanging clothes on a crisp, beautiful day. I was using one arm (more on that later), but managed it semi-gracefully (atleast no one was watching).

This is all part of my new efforts to save money in little ways around the house. Since I expect to be getting my Masters in the fall, I will be cutting down on my work a bit and in general, we both want to be spending less. I have no idea how much it saved us to not use the dryer (anyone know?), but it feels good. Also, the dryer is awfully noisy-- not today! :)

Phooey!

After my post about knitting, I decided to calmly and confidently move into spinning again and start a new bobbin.

I had a good 5-10 minutes where I felt like I was finally getting good at this. Sunday David and I went to the Hoggetowne Medieval Faire, here in Gainesville. While there I spotted a woman drop spindling and got talking to her. I told her my main issue which has been that I get spinning, and then I end up with a big blob of wool in my left hand (non-drafting hand), which I then can't pull wool out of anymore- it kind of gets knotted up. She told me I was spinning too fast.

She was right.

I tried slowing down and really focusing on my drafting. It was much better. Enter 5 minutes of happy spinning and confidence boosting.

I was getting a very nice thickness of yarn- just right. Then at one point I thinned out too much and the yarn broke off. No biggie, right? Well, the problem became that I couldn't find the other end. It disappeared into the bobbin! So, I started pulling out other strands and it just became a big mess.

I don't know where to go from here. How do I pick back up if I can't find the end? I don't want to waste the wool I DID spin by throwing it out to start over. *sigh*

Any ideas?

The next installment: Flowing River Shawl and CTH sock

I've completed the 2nd chart for the flowing river shawl, and my adoration continues. This is really my first time knitting something lacy and complex that doesn't repeat much. It continues to inspire me with the surprises in each row. "Hey! those K2tog stitches made THAT! Cool!" I also really like the silk lace- so light and airy, but still soft.

I've also been continuing on the Cherry Tree Hill socks- both because I need to get out this late Christmas gift, and also as a way to balance out the complexity of the shawl with the simplicity of the socks.

I really like this yarn. It's squishy and soft, and nice and round. It feels like there's something to this yarn. The Trekking, while lovely, was still kind of thin for me, I think. Also, talk about surprises- I really didn't expect this yarn to stripe at all. Now I find that this "supersock" is striping in a way I've never seen before- subtle, but still lovely. I like it. The colorway is Northern Lights.

The colors in the pictures just aren't working for me, so I'm gonna post 2.

This picture is darker than the true colors of the sock, but shows the depth of the reds better.

This picture shows the purples better.

Combine the two pictures, and you have a very unusual, but enjoyable colorway- one that's growing on me with every row.